1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to telecommunications and, more particularly, to generating and sending of messages.
2. Description of Related Art
In certain messaging systems, when a user opts to reply to a message, a messaging client can be arranged to automatically include in the user's reply message a copy of the original message. For instance, when the user opts to reply to a message, the client may generate and present to the user a reply template that includes a copy of the original message text, and the user may then type reply message text into the template, typically before the original message text. The client may then send the reply message, including the reply message text and the original message text, to the original sender.
This process works perfectly well in a scenario where messages are not restricted to a maximum size limit. That is, if the body of a reply e-mail message is not subject to a maximum size limit, no difficulty arises from including original message text in a reply e-mail message together with the reply message text.
A problem can arise, however, in a scenario where messages are limited to a maximum length. For instance, in a Short Message Service (SMS) messaging system that operates under current industry standards (e.g., TIA/EIA-637 and variants thereof), the body of each SMS message is typically limited to a maximum of 160 characters. Given this maximum size limitation, the inclusion of original SMS message text in a reply SMS message would necessarily decrease the capacity available for the reply message text. For example, if the original message is 40 characters long, then a space of only 120 characters would be left for the reply message text. (Further, if a text heading such as “ORIGINAL MESSAGE:” is included to introduce the original message, even less space would be left for the reply message text.)
One partial solution to this problem may be to have the messaging client include just a predefined part of the original message in the reply message. For instance, with a 160 character limit, a messaging client could be set to include only the first 20 characters of an original message in every reply message, thereby leaving 140 characters for use as reply message text. This solution would be undesirable, however, because it would always remove that predefined amount of capacity from every reply message. Further, it would be undesirable, because it would arbitrarily limit the amount of the original message that is included.